


A Burning Vine Bears Bitter Fruit

by sourassin (scherryzade)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Mirkwood, Possibly the least sexy sex pollen fic ever, Sex Pollen, actually it's more like evil sex stinging nettles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 12:36:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8489914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scherryzade/pseuds/sourassin
Summary: Strange things grow in Mirkwood, waiting to ensnare the weary or unwitting. Nori stumbles into one, and while it only takes a steady hand and a sharp blade to cut him loose, the sting lingers.





	

They're three days lost in Mirkwood when Nori stumbles, and ruins his life. He doesn't even fall - he trips, and flails out a hand to stop himself, catching a nearby tree.

Thorin, walking a step behind him, puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Careful," he says.

"'M fine," says Nori, and then realises he can't move his hand. A vine he could swear wasn't there a moment ago has caught his wrist. He pulls, and hisses at the sudden sting as the vine scratches his skin.

Nori pulls again, and the vine _moves_. "Bloody hells," he says, disbelieving, as the vine crawls up his arm, snaking under his sleeve. "Fuck!"

Thorin reaches to help him, and Nori uses his free hand to snatch Thorin's away from the vine. "Don't touch it," he says. It's not scratching him - the pain is more like the sting of a nettle.

Thorin nods, and draws Orcrist. "Pull him back," he says to the others, and someone grabs him around the waist, pulling him away from the tree.

"Mahal's flaming balls," Nori yells. No nettle ever hurt that bad. They pull him far enough for Thorin to cut through the vine between Nori and the tree, but the vine around his arm doesn't loosen. If anything, its grip tightens. Nori takes out one of his knives, but even his free hand is shaking too much to cut away his sleeve. He holds it out. "Get it off me," he whines.

In the end it's Balin, sensibly gloved, who cuts the vine away from Nori's arm, inch by burning inch.

For a moment, they all just stare at Nori's arm, covered in twisting lines of red, some already blistering as if scalded. Then Oin rummages in his pack and pulls out a jar of something that looks like - and likely is, for he can only have made it at Beorn's - honey.

"This should soothe it, and keep it clean," he says, and starts to daub it on Nori's skin.

The ointment may soothe, but Oin's application of it does not - Nori hisses and starts to pull away. "Mind what yer doing!" He doesn't remember Oin's treatment of the cuts and bruises acquired in the goblin caves being meted out so roughly.

He's stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. "Easy," says Thorin. "He's trying to help."

”Sorry," mumbles Nori. "It's fine, it's working," he says to Oin, "only don't poke so."

Oin looks to be working into a snit at the insult to his methods, but Thorin says "Oin," in a warning tone and he deflates.

"Best I can do in the circumstances, lad," Oin tells Nori. Nori nods, bites his tongue, and breathes through his nose.

Thorin's hand on his shoulder is too warm, but it's a welcome distraction from the burning of his arm. He finds himself leaning in to it - Thorin startles, but does not pull away until Nori's arm is covered and lightly bound with strips of clean linen.

The honey ointment works at first - by the time they stop for the night, and Oin checks his arm, the swelling has gone. The red lines remain, and even another application of the ointment cannot keep Nori from waking in the night to find he's torn half the bandages away to scratch at his skin.

And then they get lost - more lost - and the ointment runs out.

Nori tries, he really does, but the burning will not stop. It's worked itself bone deep and no amount of scratching will ease it, but he can't stop himself. It doesn't help that every time one of the company catches him and smacks his hand away from his arm, the burning spikes and he has to dig his nails into his palm to keep from yelling at them.

He tries practicing knife tricks to distract himself, but the pain makes his hands shake and he fumbles the knife, has to hide it away and hope no one saw. He takes every watch he can, because he can't sleep, but then finds himself stumbling against trees in the day, too tired to hold himself up, and nearly chokes on the panic.

They're all tired, all stumbling. Fili lurches against him, and Nori almost takes his head off. It's not even the same arm the vines caught, and yet it burns at the contact.

Thorin pulls him away from his nephew, growling. Nori is dimly aware of shouting and shoving breaking out in the Company, but all his awareness is focussed on the bright point of heat where Thorin's hand is fisted in his collar. Heat, but not that terribly burning itch.

The moment passes as quickly as it comes, because Thorin releases him, sending him tumbling to the ground, and then wades back into the Company to break up the fight.

For a brief, mad moment Nori wonders if fire will burn out the itch, like the heat of Thorin's hand.

The spiders' venom offers brief respite, not that Nori can appreciate it much - by the time he's awake enough to notice, the burning has returned.

By the time he's free of the spiders' web, every inch of his skin is aflame.

By the time the elves catch them, he can barely stand. He tenses as the elves start to search them for weapons. Even the movement of his clothes against his skin has become unbearable.

Then the elf searching him notices the knife underneath his shirt, and reaches for it. The elf's fingertips brush against his skin.

Nori screams.

When he awakens, the burning is dulled. Not gone, not at all, but he finds he does not care so much. Milk of the poppy, no doubt. Wearing off, he thinks, and resolves not to move. He's been stripped, and lain between sheets that are silk, or something like, and he can feel the burning just on the edge, just a moment from flooding back.

"So you will do nothing for him?" Thorin, sounding spitting mad. Elves, thinks Nori dimly. Must be elves.

The dry, clear voice that follows confirms it. "There is nothing we can do, Thorin, whether we wished to or no. The poison of the ruinwîn can only be driven out by a lover's touch. And if none of your company are such -" The speaker pauses, waiting for the muttered assent of the Company. "Then I greatly doubt you will find a match for him among _my_ people."

Nori suspects he should be insulted by this. He twists, trying to get a glimpse of the speaker, and immediately the pain returns. He gasps, the shock of it driving away his voice.

"He's waking," someone says. He'd say it was Dori, except they sound scared.

The pain threatens to overwhelm him, and Nori curls in on himself, forcing himself to breathe slowly.

"If you are lying," growls Thorin, "and seek to hurt him as petty vengeance for our _trespass_ -"

"I do not," snaps the elf. "No elf would wish such a thing on any living creature. I pity him." And then, archly, "You have no one to blame but yourself, for leading him so far astray."

Thorin pours insults on several generations of the elf's ancestors.

The elf waits until Thorin has worn himself out, and then says, "There is one thing that might assuage his pain, dwarven and elven natures being so different, although I cannot guarantee it."

"What?" Thorin asks.

"As I said, the only known cure is the touch of a lover, but love is quite different for our two peoples is it not? When we love, we love entirely, body and soul. If we do not love entirely, then we do not love in part, or - parts," the elf says with distaste. "But it is not quite so among dwarves, is it? You are -" and here distaste drops to contempt, "physical creatures. You speak of your One, but you sport with many -"

The Company grumbles with indignation, but the elf ignores them. "That being the case, it behoves me to tell you of a tale - no more than a rumour, I will allow - that says that a Man, once snared by the vine, was cured by the touch of his companion, one who had been close to him when the vine first entrapped him. Men, like dwarves, are free with their bodies -"

"Would you mock us so? When he lies in pain, in anguish in your halls?" If Thorin's anger was great before, it is blazing now.

"I do not mock," says the elf. "I speak as I have heard. If you will not attempt it -"

"As if it were not as blasphemous a crime to us as to you, to prey on one unwilling, insensible -"

"- Then you will have to hope that the fever burns itself out without destroying him. Elves have lived through it, though none without damage to spirit and mind. I doubt a mortal would survive."

"'M not insensible," says Nori into the silence follows. He hears the Company rush to his side, and cracks open one eye. "That's the problem, innit?" he says, attempting a smile. It falls rather flat, if the faces of his friends are anything to go by.

Nori says, "Thorin."

It was Thorin who steadied him when the vine took hold. Thorin who had tried to pull the vine away before Nori stopped him. Thorin whose touch had been a brand on his skin, hot enough to drive away the itch. Hot enough to burn out the fever.

Thorin, who looks at him, horrified, when he holds out a hand. "Worth a punt?" says Nori, lightly, and Thorin's expression shifts to sorrow.

"Could make it worse," he says. "When the elf touched you in the forest, you screamed like -"

"Aye, but at least then I'll pass out again, and I could really do with not feeling like my bones are -" Nori stops, gathers his thoughts. "If it doesn't work, knock me out?"

Thorin nods, once, and starts to undo one of his vambraces. He reaches out his uncovered hand to touch Nori's.

The bloom of warmth on his skin makes him gasp, and Thorin flinches back. Nori chases after him, grasps his wrist, and Thorin grasps his in turn.

"Better?" asks Thorin.

Nori nods, not trusting his voice.

"So we have our solution! How fortuitous," says the elf. "No doubt you will wish for privacy - my people will bring you the requisite oils and so forth, and the rest of your Company will be - accommodated elsewhere -"

Thorin's face twists in a snarl. "Get out."

Nori can see the elf behind Thorin, sweeping out in a swirl of silver cloth and golden hair.

The heat from Thorin's hand is creeping up Nori's arm, but it's not enough. Thorin knows it too, judging by his expression.

Nori looks away, and finds Dori crouching beside him, close as he can be without touching. He does touch, in fact, but only Nori's hair, waggling a point like he used to when Nori was first trying out his style.

"Gerrof," says Nori without rancor, and they smile weakly at each other.

"You mightn't have to, you know. Dwarves are stronger than that elf thinks, and we Ris are twice as strong again," says Dori. "You'd likely shake off the fever in a few days."

"It's not just a fever," says Nori. "It's - uncanny, I reckon, like the forest." He nods towards Thorin. "He'll see me right."

"Nadadith -" Dori's voice breaks, and Nori wishes he could hug him, but he can't.

"I'll be alright," he says.

"I will not hurt him, you have my word," says Thorin. "Nor do more than is needed."

Dori sets his jaw and glares at Thorin, then just as quickly subsides. It takes Ori tugging at his sleeve to get him to move, and follow the rest of the company from the room.

Nori waits until the door closes behind them before letting out a shuddering breath. "Please," he says, already pulling Thorin towards him. "Please," he says, and it sounds like a sob.

Thorin pulls him close without demur, and Nori curls into him, drawn to the heat of his skin. What little he can touch far outdoes the rasping touch of Thorin's clothes - his bare forearm under Nori's hand, the line of his neck between ear and collar.

Nori presses close, and sobs.

"Easy," says Thorin, and rests his free hand on Nori's back. "I have you."

That hand is still encased in a gauntlet, and only his fingers touch Nori's skin, but Thorin traces gentle circles on his back, and Nori revels in the lines of heat that follow them.

But the lines fade, and the burning returns.

"Thorin," says Nori, and Thorin's hand stills.

"It is not enough, is it," he says.

"Not hardly," says Nori.

Thorin removes his hand, and Nori hisses as his back starts to burn in earnest once more. Thorin tugs at the buckles on his vambrace with his teeth, shucking it off and dropping it before settling his hand on Nori's neck. The heat of it makes Nori gasp.

Thorin waits until Nori has settled his breathing before easing him back until they face each other. Nori whimpers at the separation, and Thorin squeezes the back of his neck. "Steady," he says. Nori nods, and raises his head to look at Thorin. Thorin gazes back, patient and grim.

"I'm sorry," Nori blurts out.

Thorin frowns. "This is not your fault."

"I touched you, when the vine got me, I touched you first, I'm sorry -"

Thorin shakes his head. "If you had not, the vine would have ensnared me as well, and likely others. You are not to blame for this."

"I'm still - I'm sorry, still, I shouldn't, it's wr-wrong -"

"It is not your doing, Nori," says Thorin. "Nor can we assume the worst - I do not trust that snake of an elf to speak the truth. Or even to know it - we are mortal, yes, but we are not Men. It may yet prove to be my touch that soothes you, and that alone."

Nori nods.

"But if it does not, I would not have you take any blame onto yourself. Promise me that."

Nori nods again, then, when Thorin squeezes his neck again to prompt him, says, "Aye. I promise."

"Good," says Thorin. Nori tries to move close once more, but Thorin holds him back. "We must do this slowly, if you can bear it," he says. "The better to judge what effect each -" Thorin hesitates.

"Right," says Nori.

"I do not wish to hurt you -"

"You won't," says Nori. "You can't, not like - not with - not like it -"

"Listen," says Thorin. He rubs his thumb gently against Nori's wrist, and Nori shivers. "I know you are in pain, and my touch soothes you, but that does not mean I cannot hurt you. I must know if you can tell when you are hurt, beyond the pain from the vine."

"I -" Nori tries to think. "Pinch me, and we'll see."

"Nori," chides Thorin.

Nori rolls his eyes, and pinches himself, ignoring Thorin's soft protest. "I can tell," he says. "I can tell that it should hurt, like I can tell the sheets are soft, but they hurt the same. But - I don't know I can tell the difference if it's you who does it. So. Pinch me."

Thorin loosens his grip on Nori's arm, and Nori stops himself from chasing after it. He pinches Nori, more gently than Nori would have, and almost immediately runs his hand over the reddened skin.

"I can tell," says Nori. "I can tell what you're doing."

"And you must tell me," says Thorin. "If aught that I do hurts you, you must let me know, however soothing it may seem to the poison of the vine."

Nori laughs. "It's not soothing, exactly."

Thorin looks taken aback. "Then how does it - what do you - how does it help?"

"Heat," says Nori. "Heat enough to burn out the vine."

Thorin stares down at his hand, still on Nori's arm. Guilt claws at Nori's throat, but it's not enough to let him push Thorin away.

"Thorin," he says instead, "please."

Thorin startles, and for a moment Nori thinks he will pull away, but instead he meets Nori's eyes. "How long does it last, if I remove my hands?"

"Not long."

"'Tis clear my hands alone will not cure you, but if I am to strip - I can do so faster if I have both my hands," says Thorin. When Nori stares at him, Thorin prompts him further. "Can you stand it long enough for me to -"

"If - if you touch more, first?" says Nori hesitantly.

"Then I shall do that," says Thorin. He eases his grip on Nori's nape, and draws his hands to Nori's shoulders. He runs his hands down Nori's arms, the heat spreading as he does so.

The burning itch is back before Thorin has shucked off his cobweb-ruined furs. Nori clamps his mouth shut and breathes as slowly as he can.

There is a knock at the door, and Thorin pauses. He calls out, "What?"

A hesitant voice answers. "My lord Thranduil has sent me with - oils -"

"Leave it," snaps Thorin. The elf makes no answer, and the door remains closed.

Nori cannot stand it any longer, and plucks at Thorin's shirt, seeking skin. Thorin does not stop him, shucking off the last of his layers as Nori tries to flatten himself against Thorin's broad chest. That done, Thorin does not hesitate to wind his own arms around Nori, almost as tightly as Nori clutches at him.

The heat is blissful.

And for a few moments, it is enough.

Thorin's hands move slowly across Nori's skin, falling into a pattern that almost keeps the burning at bay, but not quite. Nori clings to Thorin, but while one side of his arms are kept warm, the skin on the other side is left bereft. The sheets have tangled around Nori's waist, and shift as he may he cannot gain purchase, cannot touch where he needs, is not touched where he needs.

He ruts against Thorin all the same. It hurts, but he cannot stop himself, nor the whimper of pain it provokes.

"Wait," says Thorin, his hand a bloom of warmth on Nori's hip, and Nori stills. "Nori, I - you must tell me what you need, I cannot -" His voice sounds wretched, and Nori whines in response. Thorin's breath hitches, and he sweeps his hand back up and down Nori's side.

"Nori," he says, voice more certain. "Tell me what you need."

"I don't know!" Nori says. "More! I need more, it's not enough -" He breaks off, tries to think. "It's not - it doesn't go deep enough. The heat, from your touch, it doesn't reach my bones."

"Nori, you - you are aroused," says Thorin, gently. "Are you - can you feel that?"

"Course I can fucking feel it," Nori snaps. "Been hard since -" He stops, presses his face against Thorin's shoulder. If he didn't know better, he'd say the burning he felt now was pure shame.

"I'm sorry," says Thorin.

"The fuck are you apologising for?"

"I did not want to believe the elf spoke true," says Thorin. "I thought perhaps it could be held off -"

Nori pulls away from him. He doesn't get far before the pain has him doubled over. Thorin reaches for him, and Nori bats him away. "You don't 'ave to," Nori says. "I'm not asking you to."

Thorin's hand brushes down Nori's arm, a single line of clean heat amidst the pain. He reaches Nori's hand, and grasps it.

Nori scrambles away from him, but Thorin follows. "Stop," says Thorin, and Nori stops, half falling from the bed. Thorin tugs him back, moving to embrace him.

Nori says, "No," and Thorin stills. His hand releases Nori's, but Nori, try as he might, cannot let him go in turn. They sit there, inches apart, Thorin still and silent, Nori shaking. Burning, save for the hand that grasps Thorin's.

"I said I would not hurt you," says Thorin. "I gave my word. And I think it would hurt you more, now, to leave you to endure this alone."

Slowly, he pulls Nori closer, until his back is flush against Thorin's chest. One hand he draws slowly across Nori's chest, the other traces down Nori's arm until his hand encloses Nori's. "May I help you?"

"Please," says Nori.

Thorin's hand slides lower on his chest, down his belly. And then he hesitates.

"Please," gasps Nori.

Thorin's hand spreads flat on Nori's belly, steadying. "This would be better with oil," he says. Nori huffs, and grabs Thorin's hand, spitting into it.

"No need," he says.

Thorin doesn't hesitate further, his hand curling round Nori's cock firmly. It knocks the breath from Nori, and he slumps back against Thorin.

"How -" Thorin's voice seems even closer in Nori's ear. "Tell me what you need."

"Hard," gasps Nori. "Not fast, just -"

Thorin's grip tightens, and Nori whines. Thorin's hand, strong and slow, becomes the centre of his world. In the last unburnt part of his mind, Nori knows that his spit and slick is not enough, that Thorin's hand is too rough against his skin, but the heat overwhelms it, the heat drives everything before it. Thorin's hand, slow and steady, sends heat pulsing through him.

He wants to buck up against it, but needs the warmth of Thorin against his back. Thorin seems to sense it, placing his other hand low on Nori's belly, pressing him down, containing him. The hand on his cock never falters.

Thorin's face is pressed against Nori's neck, his breath slow and measured - too measured to be natural. His eyes are closed, Nori thinks - his mouth, he can feel, a thin line pressed against Nori's skin. There is a line of white heat through Nori's core from that touch to Thorin's hand, steady and strong.

He spends with a cry, and for a moment the white heat burns out everything. For a moment, he hangs in pure pleasure.

For a moment, he does not feel anything at all. He senses Thorin moving beneath him, his grip loosening.

Thorin eases Nori from his lap, and with perfect care takes a corner of the sheet to clean Nori's skin where his seed fell. And Nori knows the sheets are silken smooth, but he cannot feel that, he only feels the scratch of steel wool, sandpaper -

"No," he says. "No, no, no, I cannot, no -"

"Steady," says Thorin, his hand flat once more on Nori's burning skin, but his own voice is not steady, and that touch is not enough, not near enough. Nori reaches for him, clings to him.

"Please, more, I need more -" But Thorin's arms around him are not enough. "I need - I need you - inside - I - please, please, I'll take it in my mouth, anything, please -"

"Stop," says Thorin, but Nori cannot stop, mouths his pleas against Thorin's skin until Thorin seizes Nori's head in his hands and pulls him back and kisses him, fierce and hard until Nori's words die in his throat and his mind is almost clear, and he can see Thorin when he pulls away, breath as ragged as Nori's. "I will do this," Thorin says, but he holds Nori firm when he would reach for him again. "I will, but I swore I would not hurt you, and we must have oil - we must," he says, as Nori shakes his head. "So I must fetch it -"

"No, no, do not leave me -"

"- it is but a dozen steps away and I will be back directly, you will hardly know I'm gone -"

"I _cannot."

"You can," says Thorin, "you have such strength, my brave one, my warrior, such strength to have endured this. One moment more, only, and you will be free of it, I swear -"

He kisses Nori once more, on the cheek, but no less fiercely. "Stay," he says, and then he is gone.

The loss of Thorin's heat sends the fever racing back through Nori, and he can hardly breath. He's dimly aware of the keening whine he's making, tries to hold it back. Fails. Is dimly aware of the sound of a door opening, Thorin's hurried footsteps, but cannot see through tears that burn on his cheeks. He sobs.

And then Thorin is there, arms strong around him, blessedly warm on his skin. Nori shakes in his arms, still sobbing. "I am here," says Thorin, "I am here, my brave one, I am with you."

"Take me," says Nori. "Fuck me."

Thorin's breath hitches, but he says, "I will, Nori, soon. Just a moment more," and his voice is steady.

Thorin moves as if to lay Nori on the bed, and Nori hisses, pulls himself as close to Thorin as he can. "I can't," he says. "The sheets, I can't, not like that."

Thorin stills. "On your knees?" he asks.

Nori feels the rasp of silk against his skin and shakes his head.

"Have you the strength to hold yourself up," asks Thorin, gently. "To hold onto me while I - prepare you."

In answer, Nori pulls himself up, pushing up from Thorin's shoulders. Thorin looks up at him, almost wonderingly. "My brave warrior." He shifts once more, settling steady on his knees - he is fully stripped, Nori realises, must have done so when he fetched the oil - then pulls Nori down so they are face to face, chest to chest. Nori brings his arms around Thorin's neck, his legs around Thorin's thighs, touches as much as he can, drinks in the heat of Thorin's touch. Presses against Thorin, rolling his hips so his cock, caught between them, hard again so soon, thrusts against Thorin's belly and Thorin's breath catches. He thinks, sluggishly, of how he would relish such a reaction if circumstances where different. It is not enough to make him stop.

"The oils," says Thorin. "I cannot tell which will suit -"

"Any, Thorin, please -"

Thorin kisses his cheek again, gently, and Nori stills. "Not if it hurts you as the sheets do," Thorin reasons. "Let me test them, here, on your skin." He presses a hand on Nori's thigh. Nori nods, and burrows against Thorin's skin as he fumbles with the first bottle.

The first oil does not burn, and Nori is about to tell Thorin to use it, but then he realises that he cannot feel Thorin's hand on his thigh. He shakes his head.

The second -

"- sorry, I'm sorry, Nori, please," Thorin babbles in his ear, his arms tight around Nori as he shudders back to his senses. "I'm sorry," he whispers against Nori's skin.

"Third time lucky," says Nori, and he hardly recognises his own voice, so raw it sounds, but Thorin laughs.

"My brave one," he says. "I'll burn this forest to the ground," he mutters as he reaches for the third bottle. "How can they live in such a place?"

"Probably - like it," says Nori, between breaths, then hisses as Thorin touches the third oil to his thigh. Thorin flinches. "No, it's fine," says Nori. The oil feels as if it would chill him, if not for the burning in his flesh. And he can feel Thorin's warmth through it. "That one, use it -" Nori bites down on the 'please' that would follow when he feels how still Thorin has gone.

Thorin takes a breath. Another, and Nori will not plead, but his body craves Thorin's touch, and try as he might Nori cannot stop himself from rutting against him. Thorin steels himself - Nori can feel every movement, every muscle, pressed against him as he is - and says, "Hold yourself up," his voice as raw as Nori's. Nori does, and holds as steady as he can, holds back his whine at the loss of Thorin's hands as Thorin douses his hands in the oil.

Thorin pours oil onto Nori, too, and Nori shudders at the strange cold burn of it, but then Thorin is there, his warmth, his heat, his touch, easing Nori open. "Yes," says Nori, no more than a breath, then, louder, "More," because Thorin's hands are firm and warm, his fingers easing bright heat inside him, but it's not enough, not enough, not enough -

"I know," says Thorin. "I know, but soon, one more and it will be done," and Nori bears down just as Thorin presses a third finger inside him. "My warrior, my brave one."

"Yours," agrees Nori.

Thorin groans, and his hand leaves Nori, fumbling for the oil once more, and Nori whines, claws at Thorin, and Thorin mutters, "Mahal forgive me," and then he is inside Nori, completely.

For a moment, Nori can make no sound. Then Thorin thrusts, and thrusts again, and again, and it rips from Nori a whimper that makes Thorin falter, stop, and Nori must find his voice, must, because the heat is molten gold, and he needs - "More," he chokes out, and Thorin shifts his grip on Nori's thighs.

Takes a breath.

And Nori has to press his mouth against Thorin's skin to muffle his howl, because the angle has changed and the heat is a furnace, melting hard wrought iron, molten steel, wave after wave of it through his body, through his core, his limbs, his skin. His bones.

Thorin thrusts, steady and strong, and does not falter again, even when Nori clings to him hard enough to bruise, even when the wordless sounds mouthed against his skin become bites, hard enough to break the skin. With every thrust, the heat builds, grows, burns.

And then Thorin drops his head to Nori's shoulder, and Nori can feel his breath, hot and ragged against his skin, and then he can feel everything - Thorin's breath, his hands firm on Nori's thighs, the sweat on his back where Nori grips him, their chests pressed together, the brush of his hair against Nori's arms, his cock thrusting deep inside Nori, Nori's own cock caught between them, dragging through the hair on Thorin's belly - and the white heat pulses through him, blissful, awful, inexorable -

He slumps against Thorin, breathless, as the pleasure ebbs, the heat abating. He has not the energy to tense as he waits for the burning to return. Just one moment's rest, he silently begs Mahal. Thorin still holds him up, for while Nori's arms are still around his neck, there is no strength in them.

"Nori," says Thorin, and runs his hand gently across Nori's thigh. "How do you fare?" He kisses Nori's shoulder, his beard rasping against Nori's skin. "Speak," he insists, "speak to me, Nori."

"Shan't," grumbles Nori, and Thorin laughs, a shaky breath on Nori's neck.

"Are you - is it done? Your skin is not so hot to the touch, but only you can say - Nori?"

Nori sighs, and steels himself once more. He unwinds one arm from Thorin's neck, and leans to touch the sheets beneath them.

"Nori?"

"Put me down, put me down -" Thorin obeys, and Nori stretches out on the sheets, torn and soiled from their coupling and blessedly, blessedly cool. "Oh."

"The burning has gone?" asks Thorin, and Nori hums in confirmation. "Thank the Maker," says Thorin, muffled. Then, more clearly, "Nori, are you - did I -" A breath. "Are you hurt?" Nori shakes his head, revelling in it. Thorin moves closer, but does not touch him. "We should - I would check you are unhurt, if you will let me -"

Nori hums again.

"Nori," says Thorin, more steel in his voice. "Speak."

"Aye, if you must," says Nori. He knows Thorin has not injured him, and would say so, but he is too startled by the sound of his own voice to continue. He does not recognise it.

"Here, drink this." Nori opens his eyes enough to see the cup that Thorin has brought to his lips. It's only water, but it's the sweetest thing he's ever tasted, and he sucks at it greedily, nearly choking himself in the process.

"Easy," says Thorin, drawing the cup away. "Slowly," he chides. "There is food, too - you have not eaten in too long -" Nori shakes his head. "Drink, then, and then I will check -" Thorin smiles, just barely, as Nori wrinkles his nose at the thought. "And then I will let you rest, I swear."

Nori drinks his fill, and then he drowses, little roused as Thorin cleans him with gentle touches, and checks him for imagined hurts, and he is asleep even before Thorin is done.

He startles awake, chased out of strange dreams full of vines and limbs. Thorin, standing at the far side of the bed, does not notice him wake. Not standing - leaning against the bed, and though his back is to Nori, there is no mistaking the tension in his body, the furious movement of his hand -

Nori almost reaches out to him, wants to, with sudden desperation, but the lines left on his arm by the vine, silver now, not red, catch his eye and give him pause. By the time he steels his resolve, Thorin is muffling a cry against his free hand, the other stilled. Nori squeezes his eyes shut, feigns sleep as Thorin wipes his hand on the sheets. He listens as Thorin dresses, muttering prayers for forgiveness from their Maker.

Nori's cold, he realises, and even as he notices, he shivers.

Thorin sees it, he can tell, for he stills momentarily, then moves around the bed, and lays something across Nori's shoulders. His furs, there being no other cover on the bed beyond the ruined sheets. He is careful not to touch Nori. Then, and in all the days that follow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ruinwîn:  
> ruin - burning  
> gwîn - vine  
> (More or less - my elvish is not what it could be)
> 
> Okay, see, what I started out to write was your classic hazy onset of lust type sex pollen fic, followed by low to moderate pining - I'm honestly not sure how I ended up with this instead, although it did involve me giving up in despair every few months as Nori steadfastly refused to succumb to vague glowy sexual euphoria.


End file.
